The prior art public telephone includes a housing, a headset and a hook for holding the headset when not in use and a key pad, the housing having a front wall, a rear wall, a bottom wall, a top wall, a left side wall and a right side wall, the key pad having a plurality of finger actuators, the front wall having square holes for the finger actuators, each finger actuator having an end face with a selective area to suit a finger tip, and the front wall having web portions disposed between pairs of adjacent common holes. The front wall usually has a hole of about 3.5 inches square to allow the key pad to penetrate.
One problem with the prior art public telephone is that each web portion is relatively thin and can be broken away along with the key pad by impact forces applied thereto by a thief, for gaining access to coins disposed within the telephone as well as to the electronics of the telephone. As a result of this vulnerability, the owner of the telephone installation can lose the major part of his investment in the telephone.